Russian Pirates Beware: Shiver Your Own Timbers!

According to news sources, the Centre of Firefighting Robotechnics in Petrozavodsk, a city in northern Russia, has designed a device for extinguishing fires on seagoing vessels and in ports. This is in response to the alarming number of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden off the African shore. Twelve robots are needed to protect the average size vessel and the system involves monitored motion sensors, which when in automatic mode, shoot a water cannon at any approaching boat if danger is perceived. The water cannon not only has enough power to wash away boarding pirates, it can even sink their motorboats! The robots can also be operated manually from the bridge via cameras.

The manufacturer of these robots told the press that one freighter company in Murmansk, Russia, has already ordered a number of them for testing. Although a fabulous idea that is a long time coming, the only problems that may now arise concern the long arm of current maritime laws. Arming the crews of freighters with these robots so that they could defend themselves against a murderous onslaught requires major alterations in these antiquated statutes.

The idea for these pirate-fighting robots emanated from an existing prototype of a robot designed to fight fires. Each robot was originally meant to extinguish fires onboard ships and in ports, but Russian engineers later came up with a plan to have a dozen such robots protecting ships against pirates. The power from the water cannon, whether operated automatically or manually, is more than sufficient to wash the menacing marauders overboard and out to sea.

These robots are still in the testing stage stage, but Blackbeard, wherever your spirit may warmly lay, take heed. It’s finally time for you and others like you to: